Katie's Lanterns

I'm making chinese lanterns out of tissue paper for above Katie's crib. They're taking a lot more time than I thought and I don't even know if they'll work/look reasonable. I feel ridiculous spending so much time on them when I'm swamped in pretty much every other way imaginable, but I am continuing with my efforts anyway:

Materials: balloon, white tissue paper, glue, acrylic paint, water.
How to: blow up balloon and set inside a solo cup. Tear up tissue paper and use 1 part paint:2 parts glue:3 parts water to add a bunch of layers. Allow to dry.

Picture taken from my phone showing the 10 lanterns I made in different colors.


Close up of the lanterns. I popped one (on purpose) this morning and it looked pretty stable. I was very excited.

Belly pictures

I hate belly pictures. They make me miserable. But my mom is afar and wants to see the explosion that has become her daughter, so here they are. As a side note, I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and I am measuring 3 cm over my week, meaning I may have a ginormous baby inside me or a lot of fluid in there. If I'm still 3 cm over next week, they're giving me another ultrasound to find out. Maybe Katie is a giant blueberry after all.

And now for your afternoon enjoyment... I think the 2nd one really gives you the full profile shot.

Kickin' Katie - 6 weeks to go

I'm at 34 weeks and weigh 194 lbs (40 lb weight gain thus far... and I still have 6 weeks to go). Average is 25-35 lbs, but everyone is different. The doctor's not worried about it so I'm not going to either. I'm feeling great but am having trouble moving around (getting to sleep is a lot harder now since there's so much weight and it's hard to shift around to get comfortable. But once I'm asleep, I'm golden. Walking is also hard so I've been limiting distance. Other than that, things are fine. She's kicking a lot now. Ken put his head next to my belly last night and started calling her name and she immediately kicked him in the nose. literally. It was pretty insane. One of the bigger kicks and it was completely in time with him calling her. Weird. We both looked at each other in amazement and fear of what's to come.

The nursery is coming along. My mom and her friends are having a shower in my absence next week - very sweet. They did the same thing when we got married. Ken and I went into a baby big box last weekend and we both had a meltdown. I'm under the impression we don't need much for an infant. Ken and my mom think we need to have lots of toys, equipment, etc for her. It's pretty funny. I'm like "all she needs is a spoon and an old pot" but then ken looks at me like I'm insane. Since I'm in the minority, I've been relenting, but it's hard. Plus, the decor I like is really simple (i.e. polka dots and nothing too "baby-y") whereas Ken's first choice was a 4 piece set that I hated most in the store and embodied everything I despise in kid stuff). We compromised on some simple/cute animal stuff and we both got to pick half the items with veto power over the other. It was a fairly effective strategy. Much like the great tomato draft of 2009.

My doctor's appt today went well. I'm not sure if we'll have another ultrasound before she's born (ken feels a little ripped off by this) but my measurements look good (i.e. my belly 35 cm at 34 weeks -- i.e. anything more than 3 cm over your week # and they schedule an ultrasound to see if the baby is ginormous). So I'm happy I'm not having a 10 pounder thus far.

I haven't had any contractions (I hear braxton hicks "practice" contractions are common for my stage), but I haven't felt anything. Either my uterus is still steel or my body's a little late in this whole pregnancy thing. I was 10 weeks late on the kicking, so it's possible I'll be late on this too. I'm not worried. I work at a hospital so whenever she comes, she comes. I know they won't let me go past 42 weeks, so it won't be more than 8 weeks. Awesome and crazy we're in the single digits now.

Kids and Kinley

Rob and Jana came over last night to drop off the Bob stroller they're loaning us for Katie. They were just coming back from Astoria and had their three little ones with them who were very excited to get out of the car for a while.

They came inside to play, go to the bathroom, eat, stretch, etc.

Kinley was very excited to see all of these new people. Especially the little ones.

First, Jonathan and Ella sat down at the kitchen island to eat some berries. Ella loves berries as much as I hope Katie will. She was covered in strawberries at the wedding. It was priceless. Sadly for Kinley, they didn't drop any berries during their visit.




After they ate, they were excited to run around a bit. They loved our house's layout because they could run around in a complete circle. Kinley loved it too because he chased them around said circle. It was especially hilarious because they are the same height. Hughes was terrified though and went to hide upstairs as soon as he saw the little ones. Our house is now kid-tested, dog approved.




Jonathan quickly found Ken's hardhat for work and enjoyed trying it on. I think he liked knocking it off his head more than actually wearing it. He'd put it on, knock it off, hear it go "boom", laugh, pick it up and repeat. Kinley liked following him around.



Jackson also got to wear Ken's hardhat and even put on Ken's safety vest, which swam on him, much like my brother's boy scout hat from when we were kids. Here's a good head shot of Jackson wearing the garb. He wasn't too keen on getting his picture taken at first, but then he opened up.


Rob started packing up the car to leave and Ella stood at the door wondering what was going on. I thought this shot was priceless because this is how I see my future. A little blonde haired girl standing next to the dog at the front door, completely curious. If only Hughes were there, too.



It was so great to see Rob, Jana and the kids. Their kids make me not as scared for my own. I had a blast playing with them, holding them and swinging them from side to side. I love it when they want me to pick them up. It makes me feel special. I wonder how long that feeling will last when I have my own. :) Not to be outdone by our last encounter, Jonathan needed two diaper changes during his visit. Both were total stink bombs. Luckily mom and dad were there to save my day. We've learned that Kinley is very good at detecting stinky diapers. He followed Jonathan around and smelled his diaper until he was changed. I will use this strategy and will know to hide when Kinley starts following Katie. Lucky Ken.

Spicy Kicking

I ate spicy shrimp & grits on Monday only to learn that spicy food makes Katie kick incessantly. It was fine when she was smaller and I wasn't feeling a lot of kicking, but this time, it was just painful.

So much kicking that my belly muscles ached for the next two days. It hurt to walk since walking makes my belly move. The bus hurt. Sleeping hurt. It's now Thursday and I'm finally feeling better. You could literally see her moving around in there.

No more spicy food for me for a while.

Camping Wedding with Kids

Ken and I went to Taryn & Paul's wedding this weekend. It was one of my favorite weddings -- a camping wedding right on a river. They had it a lodge that had cabins for the parents/families and then everyone else camped on site. It was great. I loved how they arranged meals for everyone, had kegs and drinks available and everyone could meander about all weekend. From mountain biking to hiking to whitewater rafting, you could do what you want. They got married in a short, simple ceremony at 5 pm -- officiated by one of our friends.

A bunch of our friends from Tucson flew in for the wedding. San Francisco, New York, San Diego and Tucson were all represented. We organized the camping gear for 8 of us. Many thanks to our Portland friends for pitching in their gear.


The weekend was great. Getting in and out of the tent was comical, but other than that, everything was fine. There were lots of kids at the wedding (10 kids under the age of 4) and 6 pregnant women. There were only 66 people at the wedding, so kids made up a huge portion of it. It was fun to see them all running around and it made everything not as scary for me.

My highlight was babysitting our friends' (Rob & Jana's) twins while they went on a hike. The twins are 20 months and they spent most of my babysitting time napping. When the little girl woke up, I asked if she'd like to get out of her pack and play (crib of sorts) and she raised her arms so I could pick her up. My heart melted a little bit. Then we went on a search for her socks. She was surprisingly helpful. She helped me locate them -- I asked her questions and she'd point to where they likely were, which was great, because I honestly had no idea where they were. We put her socks and shoes on and then her brother woke up. I sat her on the floor with a toy while I went to retrieve her brother. Jonathan was not as helpful. His socks were easily found but completely wet from stomping in puddles or something boy-related. I found some new dry socks, put them on him and was about to take both outside when a horrible stench came from Jonathan's diaper. I watched Jana change them before they left, so I felt OK putting down the towel, getting the new diaper and the wipes. I put him on the towel and got his pants and diaper off only to realize the smell was too much for me. I started gagging. My friend Kristen was in the other room taking a shower and heard the sniffles (not sure if they were mine or his) and asked if I needed help. Knowing I was beat, I immediately said yes. Jonathan started to cry. I gave him the plastic shovel to distract him. He wanted the plastic pail too, but I kept that in case I needed it more than him. More tears. Kristen saved the day and changed him. I was next to her, completely unhelpful. I did help by gagging as I threw the poopy diaper away, but beyond that, I was useless. Ditto for when we realized Ella also needed to be changed. Kristen is my hero. Once she handled the horrible duties of both, we took them outside in the grass and let them play with their buckets and shovels until mom and dad came back. I told the tales of Kristen's awesomeness. Ella was a sweetheart and I loved how she wanted to wear dresses yet still enjoyed sitting on your lap and spilling things down the front of herself. It made me much more excited for a little girl of my own. Ken had a good time with the kids too. He played soccer with the little boys and helped Ella eat her crackers. Both were priceless.

According to the pregnancy book Natascha gave me, I am officially 8 months pregnant as of yesterday. I am 32 weeks, so 8 weeks to go, though normal arrival is anytime between 38-42 weeks. I'm assuming the latter since first births tend to be late, I was late and I'm thinking Katie's a sleeper like me. But either way, it looks like we're now in the single digits. Stay tuned.

Nursery Prep

Now that we've moved the office down to the basement, we've been working on getting Katie's room in order and taking care of other items on the to-do list before she arrives. This weekend, we:

• installed the new computer in the basement
• Hemmed and doctored curtains
• picked up a new chair
• installed a closet system
• made curtain sheers from scratch
• painted the garage exterior's first coat

I also learned why there's no good reason to make your own curtains unless you can't find what you want or are high on pregnancy hormones.

I expected it to be much easier/faster but making those curtains ended up taking most of the weekend. My back ached by the end and it was more expensive to buy the fabric than it would have been to buy pre-made curtains. Once I realized this, I bought pre-made curtain panels instead, hemmed them to fit and added a band of fun fabric on the bottom to doctor them up. The banding can be easily removed later if a different look is desired.

I made the sheers myself though (latter being $30 in fabric rather than $20 to buy premade in the store). I do love the softness of the sheers though -- better than any I found in stores. But still, they took quite a bit of time to make and were not any cheaper.

Here's a picture of the chair and curtains in Katie's room. I was trying to get more of the curtains in the picture, but I only had my phone on me and couldn't get the light correct without showing more chair than curtain.